38% of respondents would definitely install a tracing app if one were made available: Statec

Just over a third of those polled in Luxembourg would use a viable tracing app if one were made available, according to new data from Statec.

With concerns of the Covid-19 virus' continued spread the public suggested that fears of data privacy are less of a worry now than at the start of the year. However, that does not mean that they will readily sign over their data just yet. In fact, respondents would more likely download and use an app that operates across borders and in Europe, can be installed on a voluntary basis, and store data on the users’ mobile device rather than on a central server.

Personal and community responsibility

Statec's report indicates that there is a "strong motivating factor for installing the app is the sense of responsibility towards the community".

38% of respondents would definitely install a tracing app, and 34% would probably do so.

In contrast, 11% of respondents would definitely not install such an app.

In comparison, the proportion of respondents that would definitely install the app was nearly 45% in the UK and for our neighbours in France.

Despite this, the estimated rate of take up is 34% in the UK, and just 5% in France.

Centralised Vs. Decentralised

Centralised system: a central server stores all anonymised identifiers, and matches infected people and contacts. Health officials are able to access the entire network of contacts of infected users.

Decentralised system: anonymized identifiers of infected contacts are stored in a server, while the anonymized identifiers stay on the local device. The app downloads the identifiers of infected users from the server and matches them with the user’s contacts on the phone.
(source: STATEC)

56% of respondents are willing to install a decentralised app, whereas only 42% are in favor of a centralised system.

In Luxembourg, 34% of respondents would definitely install a European app, and 19% a global interoperable app, which functions across multiple countries.

65% of respondents prefer all data to be anonymised and made available to researchers to prepare for future epidemics.

It is important to note that 34% of respondents would prefer to delete all data, probably due to privacy concerns.

All these results and more are found in the Working Paper « Determinants of Acceptability of Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19: Initial Results from Luxembourg » of STATEC, published November 30, 2020, which you can download here.